8 Biblical Verses That Leftists Have Gotten Completely Wrong

Politicians of all stripes endeavor to invoke the Bible for many reasons. Some try to use God’s Word to score points with the Christian or Jewish communities. Others employ a Biblical analogy or story to drive a point home. A few even share impactful passages out of sincere faith. However, it appears that most politicians — on the Left as well as on the Right — use the Old and New Testaments to prove or further their agenda.

Civil rights leaders from the 1950s until today have used scripture to prove their point. Jimmy Carter made no secret of his Christian faith, and he claimed to center many of his policies around it. The environmentalist movement has attempted to lure Jews and Christians into its fold by using the Bible, even coining the term “Creation Care” to make radical environmentalism palatable to believers. The progressive Social Gospel concept has come front and center in the Obama era, with Leftist religious leaders like Jim Wallis and his group, Sojourners, peddling their peculiar band of radically Leftist religious conviction.

One of the most disturbing traits of the progressives’ co-opting of Biblical passages to prove their ideas is that they often take scriptures out of context, twisting them to fit their agenda. (Yes, the interpretation of scripture is quite subjective, and yes, there are people on the Right who take the Bible out of context, too. But that’s another topic for perhaps another day.) When any politician uses a verse or passage from the Bible, Christians and Jews should search the context of the scripture for accuracy and to get the full picture. Even those who do not believe in the Judeo-Christian God should check out how a politician is trying to use a particular scripture. With careful study, it’s easy to discover that the Religious Left is a particularly pernicious threat.

With that said, here are eight examples of Leftists taking Biblical passages out of context or getting the scriptures completely wrong. One theme we’ll see is that of Leftists applying ideas from scripture to collective or government policy, when the concepts in reality apply to the personal lives of God’s followers.

A brief note on Biblical translation: when I quote verses, I’m using the New International Version unless I state otherwise. It is the translation I use the most, and while some may argue that other translations are more accurate, I believe the NIV strikes the best balance between accuracy and readability.